


part heaven or part space (have i found my place?)

by constanted



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Abandonment Issues, Character Study, Dialogue Heavy, Found Family, Gen, Green Beans - Freeform, Repressed Clerics Try To Stop Each Other From Being Repressed; Fail Terribly, implied Caduceus Clay/Fjord, mentioned Beauregard Lionett/Jester Lavorre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:34:57
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21513883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/constanted/pseuds/constanted
Summary: "Sometimes, found family's better, anyway," Beau says, firmly, and Caduceus nods."It's been nice."(or: the mighty nein and caduceus talk about family. it goes about as well as expected.)
Relationships: Caduceus Clay & Clay Family, Caduceus Clay & The Mighty Nein
Comments: 16
Kudos: 178





	part heaven or part space (have i found my place?)

**Author's Note:**

> i can't stop writing about this pink bastard. title from the muppets' "i'm going to go back there someday," but if you want mood music, check out rachael yamagata's cover.

_ beau _

“You had older sisters.” It’s a simple opener. Not much to it.

“I have one. And an older brother,” because that’s a true answer. “Haven’t seen ‘em in a long time, but yeah.”

Beau sits down next to him. “Do you wish you still had them?”

“Sometimes.” There is a cut on the knuckle of his left thumb that is extremely worth staring at. “Sometimes I think distance has made me more appreciative of them; I’m sure I’ll start arguing with my brother the second I see him again.” Because he will see them all again. He thinks. He hopes.

Beau squints, furrows her brow, smirks. “Trying to imagine you _arguing immediately_ is fucking hilarious.”

There’s an odd tightness in his jaw. “It’s a… why do you ask? Do you have an older sister, or—“

“A younger brother,” and there’s something unspoken after that. He looks at her eyes. They dart away as soon as they make contact. Her posture tenses, untenses. Beau gives answers when she needs to give answers. The two of them are similar like that. He thinks that he gets her, at least a little bit.

“Makes sense. You seem like an older sibling. Leaderly and…” he purses his lips. “Resentful.”

She snorts. “I don’t know the kid. My brother. Never met him. He doesn’t know about me, probably.” Caduceus hums at the thought; what if he didn’t know what he was missing? Would he still feel like he does? “Don’t even know his name.”

“I can ask,” he says, “If you’d like to know. Not… not with a S _ending_ , I don’t want to force contact with your parents. I understand that. But. Well—they keep a vineyard, yeah? So I’m sure that the Wildmother keeps Her eye there occasionally.” He doesn’t cast _Divination_ very often, anyway, and it’s a good spell; helped Fjord with Vandren. And look at Fjord now.

“Maybe later,” she says. Which is fair. “Thanks, Cad.” Puts her head on his shoulder. “I don’t even know what older sisters are supposed to… be like—“

“You’d be good at it,” he says. And he means it. “I have a lot of experience. You’d be really, really good at it. And I--being an older sibling, too. To someone a lot younger. I get that, also."

She’d be better at it than he was, he doesn’t say, but he means that, too. She continues, “It’s not, like—I don’t worship Her, or whatever, but I’m pretty sure the Wildmother would be cool with you checking in on your family, or having Jes check in on your family.” And imagining Jester Lavorre interacting with the people who raised him is a horrifying, delightful thought.

“There’s a lot of answers I don’t want to know,” he says, after a trying to string the words together cleanly. Like spidersilk, he thinks. “That’s more your Knowing Mistress’ domain. I—I have bigger things to focus on, and so do they. And if... if my mom or my aunt wanted to cast _Sending_ , at least, they could've done that a long time ago."

She looks at him. “They know _Sending_.”

And he doesn’t want her to think poorly of his family, but, well. He’ll take a hug. He’s got a couple of years of hugs to catch up on, anyway. And Beau’s are so rare, anyway, so—hey. He can deal with that later. He hugs her back.

_ caleb _

Caleb’s parents are dead. He is not necessarily _open_ about this, but he does not hide it either, always speaks in the past-tense of his family. Or maybe they’re not dead, just gone, and Caleb is a bit less forceful about convincing himself of that fact than Caduceus is. 

“Green beans,” he says, when they have a moment. Caleb turns to look at him with a start. “You grew green beans.”

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb says, straightening his scarf. “My mother kept a vegetable garden. It was, ah, not quite as impressive as your graveyard, of course.”

He’d not realized that there are gardens _just_ for vegetables. That’s cool. “No, it’s… that sounds really nice. We didn’t grow green beans. I think my brother was allergic, because Corrin said we _used_ to grow green beans at one point, I think. But our vegetables were mostly roots.”

Caleb nods. “My mother was a fan of kohlrabi.” His eyes look foggy. Okay.

“Mine was, too,” Caduceus offers. Because she was. Caduceus did not care much for it as a child, but hehas grown to tolerate it in more recent years, given that it’s a rather stubborn plant that can grow in the winter. Still—it was a less interesting-looking turnip.

(But it was easier to spot the blight on green flesh than on purple flesh. So it was safer.)

“Your mother, she made it to the volcano, you said. Did you hear word of how long ago that was?”

He didn’t ask. Rather—he didn’t pay attention. He didn’t want to know.

“No word. I think that all members of our little order have an odd perception of time,” he lies. Feels his stomach turn. Caleb accepts it. When Caleb lies, his nose twitches, just the slightest. Caduceus does not know if he has a tell. He’s never thought to ask anyone. His mother wouldn’t know. The Nein might. (And his stomach turns again. How is it fair, that he is better known by these people than his family? How is it fair that his mind and spirit _like_ that fact?) “Maybe she’s in Tal’dorei. Isn’t there a lot of residuum there?”

Joking, as much as Caleb can be as such, “Perhaps your mother is on the Tal’dorei Council.”

“That’d be… interesting,” he laughs. “Yeah. Yeah, let’s go with that.”

_ fjord _

They don’t talk about it.

(Fjord is jealous of family, in theory. Caduceus doubts that he understands the intricacies, but Caduceus is also working on being less of an ass to others for not understanding intricacies. And Caduceus is jealous, though he’d never admit it, of a life lived in the _world_. He misses home, but he feels like he was oddly deprived of something, now. Rosohnan sky, music in the street from some performer. The two of them are walking to do… something. Caduceus forgets the excuse he made up to go out alone with Fjord. “This sounds like a shanty,” Fjord says, smiles, “Just the—the melody.” And, tunelessly, “ _Her breath, it brought the stars along/I’ve listened to the stories/Her breath, it brought the stars along/She keeps sea, sky, and sailors strong_ ,” and he laughs, a little bit, “Wait, is the She…” and a smile, toothy and wonderful and so very new, and Caduceus’ heart feels warm. There are so many songs he still needs to learn.)

They don’t talk about it.

_ jester _

“You talked to my dad, didn’t you?”

“I did. He talked to you, then?”

“Yeah. he did. He was really… sad. But he’s my _dad_ , Caduceus!” And he smiles at her, glad that she has that. Even if he doesn’t like or trust the man. (He should trust the man who’s checking in on his home. He trusts Nila, who said she’d check on it from time to time. But he does not trust Jester’s father. This is a problematic thought that he will save for later.)

“I’m glad he could admit it.”

“Um. Thank you for. Whatever you said to him, though. You’re really persuasive and stuff.”

“Eh. I’m alright. I guilt-tripped him, mostly, played the whole _I was abandoned in the woods_ card that I can play.”

“You were _abandoned_?”

“I mean,” he hears his voice going up in pitch and why does he have to lie to this family, too? “I mean, abandonment’s a harsh word that—I was left alone. For a period of time. This is—I’ve dealt with this. It’s fine—“

“No, it’s _not_ , Caduceus! You told me not to lie to _you_ that _I’m_ fine!”

“There are bigger issues at hand.”

“You talked to _my_ dad.”

“Because I’m here to make sure that you’re all able to do what you need to do. If you’re happy, I’m happy—“

“That’s _bullshit_ , Caduceus.”

“It’s not _bullshit_ , Jester,” he parrots her tone, “It’s—the six of you are my top priority. Not—“

“You’re part of us!”

“I know that—“

“You’re one of the Mighty Nein, too, and the Mighty Nein cares about the Mighty Nein’s _feelings_ , because we’re a group, so that’s your feelings too, Caduceus.”

“And yours.”

“You’re not here just to help us, you’re here because you’re our friend and we love you—“

“And I show love by helping people—“

“And maybe we do, _too_!”

_ nott _

Nott, when they first met, had asked him if he was married or if he had kids. He doesn’t usually remember that sort of thing, but he did for some reason, because he thought it was a particularly odd question. It’s not, apparently, but, hey.

“What was getting—“ he starts talking against his better judgement. “How did you know that you wanted to get married?”

“I mean, it felt… right. We were young, we were in love, there were tax benefits.”

“What are tax ben—"

“Not—not important. Who are you thinking of marrying? Because I’m already working on _someone else_ to romance our friend _Jester_ ….”

“I don’t—if it’s Fjord, I don’t think that’s—“

“It’s not _Fjord_ ,” Nott grins.

“Did Beau tell _you_?”

“Did she tell _you_?”

“No, I just know these things—“

“Who are _you_ having feelings for, beanpole?”  


“No one in—I’m just curious about marriage because it is something I have only seen in familial or funeral-related scenarios.”

She tries and fails to read him.

“My parents were married for a very long time. I don’t know how they met. I don’t know how they decided to get married. I know that it was blessed by the Wildmother. I know that they cared a lot for each other.”

“There’s a lot of care involved in marriage, yes. It’s deciding to become a family. It’s like us. But with more sex.”

“No offense, Nott, you’re lovely, but I wouldn’t marry you.”

“Oh, Ducey. I wouldn’t marry you, either.”

_ yasha _

He calls her Calliope by accident once, and neither of them say anything about it. She has made the same mistake, with another name.

In the dome, they lie down next to each other in the quiet, their watch still hours away. Her body is warm. He’d like to show her the garden back home; she’d like it there.

**Author's Note:**

> tumblr @yahooanswer  
> kudos and comments are appreciated!  
> yasha come back tonight please baby i miss you


End file.
